Chapter 14 - Why Nora Was at the Crash
Nora asked Harper to keep the recorder running.
“I’m done with secrets,” she said.
I didn’t believe her.
But I listened.
“Elena called me from the road.”
“When?”
“Two minutes before the crash.”
“What did she say?”
“That Celeste was following her.”
“And you drove there.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you call police?”
“I did. From my car.”
Harper checked his notes.
“There is a 911 call from an unidentified woman at 8:48.”
“That was me.”
“Then why did you touch Elena’s phone?” I asked.
Nora looked at me.
“To get the red box.”
My hands curled.
“You left her there too?”
“No.”
Nora’s voice broke.
“She was unconscious when I arrived. I checked her breathing. I stayed until I heard sirens.”
“Why take the box?”
“Because Elena told me Celeste would search the car before police secured it.”
“But Celeste had already searched it.”
“She didn’t find it.”
“Where was it?”
“In the spare tire compartment.”
I looked toward the red box on Harper’s desk.
“You moved it to the greenhouse?”
“Yes.”
Nora’s confession did not make me trust her again.
It only explained one lie.
“You should have told me after the funeral,” I said.
“Elena believed Celeste would use your grief against you.”
“She did anyway.”
“Yes.”
“So Elena’s plan failed.”
Nora looked at me with tears in her eyes.
“No. Isabella is alive. The trust still belongs to her. And you finally stopped obeying your mother.”
I hated that she had a point.
Harper leaned back in his chair.
“Mr. Mercer, if this goes beyond Celeste, she may be one member of something larger, not the leader.”
The word leader changed the room.
I had spent days hunting the person closest to me. The real threat might be the structure around all of us.
“Why hide this from me?”
“Because Elena made me promise.”
I laughed angrily.
“My wife died and everyone decided I was the one person who didn’t deserve the truth.”
Nora’s eyes filled.
“She was trying to keep you alive.”
The room went quiet.
“What does that mean?”
Nora took out her phone.
“I kept one thing from the box.”
Harper immediately said, “That is evidence.”
“I know.”
She played an audio file.
Elena’s voice.
“Celeste isn’t the beginning. She’s the person cleaning up after the beginning.”
I stared at Nora.
The recording continued.
“My father-in-law created a private executive committee inside Mercer Group. Celeste inherited it. Mason worked for it. Beatriz was paid through it.”
Then a man’s voice joined Elena’s recording.
Older.
Low.
I recognized it immediately.
My father.
Dead for four years.
“If Gabriel ever chooses Isabella over the company,” he said, “remove him before he can dismantle what we built.”
My blood went cold.
Celeste had not invented the plan.
She had inherited it.
And the people on that committee were still alive.
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